


A Twilight of a Lover's Reminiscence (Koibito no Mukashigatari no Yuugure no)

by MidoriKurenaiYume



Series: Ring Your Bell ~in the silence~ [3]
Category: Fate/Zero, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Character Death, Dark, Drama, F/M, Family, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-15 03:17:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14150790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidoriKurenaiYume/pseuds/MidoriKurenaiYume
Summary: [Full outline of the AU that begins with Song of Darkness (Yami no Uta) and ends with ARIA]





	A Twilight of a Lover's Reminiscence (Koibito no Mukashigatari no Yuugure no)

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't a fic, it's the outline of a fic that I've thought about but will never have the time and patience to write. It's VERY loosely based on Pride and Prejudice, but it's much darker (there are elements from Hamlet) and, most importantly, doesn't have a happy ending. It can be confusing, and by reading it, you'll probably get an idea of how strangely my mind works :P (and how I usually outline my fics)  
> I've long debated with myself about posting it, since it's not an actual story and it's vague enough that it could easily be stolen; however, all my other fics are at risk too, therefore this is all I have to say: feel free to use any part of the outline for your own stories if you want to, just be kind enough to credit me.  
> For those who have read "Song of Darkness (Yami no Uta)" and "ARIA", they are edited versions of what they were originally meant to be to fit with this outline. So while they are part of the same universe, you will find things in here that I've purposefully omitted from them.  
> Even though it's only a convoluted summary of the story, I hope you will enjoy reading it :D
> 
> Title: obviously, from a Kalafina song, B-side of their 17th single. I used the title's translation found on the canta-per-me forum :)

….…

….…

Iskandar is the mayor of the biggest town in the region, and he has five adopted daughters, having taken them in when they need protection or just a place to stay. Irisviel is the eldest, around twenty, her biological sister Illya is the youngest at twelve; Saber (Arturia) is the second eldest at eighteen, while Rin is around fifteen years of age and Sakura is fourteen. Iskandar has a close relationship full of affection with all his adopted daughters except Saber; he disapproves of her choice of keeping up her fighting abilities, and he has never forgiven her for disobeying him and leaving for a few days on her own to kill Irisviel’s abusers after he had saved her from them. Iskandar of course accepts Saber into his home in spite of that, but isn’t close with her.

Rich and mysterious Kiritsugu is introduced, together with his partner Gilgamesh, his sisters Maiya and Shirley and his mother, Natalia; the last three however don’t attend the ball that Iskandar throws in their honour. They have come to the region for Natalia to investigate some rumours they heard about ‘dark forces’; Gilgamesh is recovering from a trauma, so they have more or less dragged him along.

Iskandar has business in town to take care of – the town relies on handicraft and trade – so at the ball introductions are made and then he leaves, making his five adopted daughters remain there with one of his distant relatives, Hassan-i-Sabbah, as companion for the rest of the evening. Saber never particularly liked Hassan, but he seems decent enough, and people tend to stay away from him because he’s a little strange, therefore she feels confident that at least no one will threaten her sisters while he is around. Irisviel is kind and speaks the most with the two foreigners (mostly Kiritsugu, Gilgamesh instead just glares around), while Saber focuses on overseeing the rest of the party with the help of Sakura, Rin and the family friend Jeanne. Illya is excited about participating to the ball but she’s also shy, therefore she hides among them. Kiritsugu is charmed by Irisviel, Gilgamesh is bored out of his mind.

Later in the evening, as Hassan has kind of melted in the shadows, one of the most important authorities of the place, getting tipsy, begins to harass Illya; Irisviel intervenes to defend her sister, but is easily overpowered. Kiritsugu wants to intervene as well, but Gilgamesh stops him, silently reminding him that they shouldn’t get involved. Saber punches the drunk man, not hiding her contempt for him, and leaves together with her sisters. Gilgamesh is impressed, liking the fire he sees in her.

Back at their temporary home, Gilgamesh avoids Natalia’s piercing questions and deals with flashes of painful memories, while they receive visits from people across the region, among which there is a colonel, Shinji, who tries to become friends with Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh dismisses him swiftly.

At their own place, Saber braids Irisviel’s hair and talks with her. She asks her if the situation during the evening before made painful recollections resurface. Flashback about Irisviel’s past, being held prisoner with her sister Illya in a castle, and Saber killing all her abusers. Irisviel reassures her, and asks her if she’s fine too. Flashback about a very young Saber seeing her older brothers having their throats slit by a shadowy menace when she was just a child. As they talk about the mysterious foreigners, Saber then warns Irisviel not to run away with her feelings.

Maiya, Kiritsugu’s sister, having noticed her brother’s interest, invites Irisviel to visit her and spend some time at her place. Since it rains, she stays the night, but falls slightly sick. Saber immediately goes to check on her, suspicious that the foreigners are doing something to her, like poisoning her food, but she finds no evidence of such a thing and is relieved to find out her sister only has a mild cold. As the bad weather becomes worse, Saber is forced to remain there too, and has several heavily sarcastic exchanges with Gilgamesh. For the first time since coming there, Gilgamesh finds some amusement. Once the weather improves, Iskandar comes in person to apologize for the trouble caused by his daughters’ presence, and Saber and Irisviel leave.

There’s a piece of news in town: the powerful man who harassed Illya and Irisviel is Tokiomi, one of the richest people in the country, and he is found dead. To be more specific, tortured to death.

None of the people seems particularly impressed nor worried, as he wasn’t a well-liked person. Saber notices that Rin seems stone-faced and very quiet for the following few days, but doesn’t get the chance to focus on it or ask her about it because at the same time another of Iskandar’s relatives comes to visit. According to Iskandar, everyone has at least one eerie relative, and Gilles de Rais is his. Gilles has come because he heard of Saber punching a man at the party, and wants to see the one who dared be so forward. Upon meeting her, he becomes obsessed with her, and goes as far as obnoxiously proposing. Saber obviously refuses, but when he attacks her in mad rage, she runs away into the woods, with Gilles following her.

In the middle of the forest she meets her friend Jeanne briefly, and even though she tells her to run and hide, Jeanne doesn’t have the time – and doesn’t even try – to move so Gilles reaches her. Mistaking her for Saber, given that they look alike, Gilles proposes to her, and to Saber’s incredulity (as she’s watching from behind a tree), Jeanne accepts easily. Later, after going home, Saber actually wonders why Jeanne was in the woods on her own in the first place, but she doesn’t have the time to ask her, as an enthusiastic Irisviel enlists her help to plan the wedding.

During the celebration [in perfect Game of Thrones style], Gilles proves to be the crazy person most people thought he was, and at the slightest comment from a bystander, shows that he is actually a tentacle-monster who starts to strangle people and throw sharp weapons around. Not managing to reach safety in time, Maiya and Illya are slayed. As Jeanne refuses to try to stop him and instead tries to protect him and even goes as far as to attack her, Saber has no choice but to kill both her and Gilles to prevent him from killing everyone else.

Irisviel is devastated by Illya and Jeanne’s horrible deaths, and so is Saber. Kiritsugu and Gilgamesh abruptly leave the region to go back to the neighbouring one where they came from, and Saber begins to suspect that they know more than they let on. A soldier named Kirei, at the orders of Colonel Shinji, who seems a wise man even though Saber finds him to have something odd and can’t bring herself to trust him, reveals to Iskandar and his daughters that it was Kiritsugu who tortured Tokiomi to death, to take revenge on the man for having harassed Irisviel. Kirei also reveals that Gilgamesh is the one who caused Gilles’s madness and made him lose control.

Iskandar is worried about everything that happened, and also about the fact that Sakura is strangely getting thinner and paler and is constantly refusing to eat. Even though she’s not particularly close to her, Saber tries to be supportive of her, and manages to at least make her and Irisviel smile, in spite of everything. Rin instead retreats in her shell, seemingly only caring about Sakura a little, but otherwise ignoring everyone else.

Iskandar is truly becoming more and more worried not just about his daughters but about what is happening in their region, and therefore he leaves for the neighbouring one, deciding he must have a duel with Gilgamesh because of what he has done to Gilles and therefore to everyone else.

Saber insists she go with him; Iskandar refuses and dismisses her as being still a child. He tells her that she can fight, she has the mind of a warrior and fundamentally a lawfully good person, but she is too foolish to survive; therefore he tells her that she should live, be the girl she still is. However, she isn’t deterred, and eventually convinces him to let her accompany him for a part of the journey, and while she won’t go to the main city with him, she tells him she will go visit her father’s godson instead, who lives at the border.

Iskandar entrusts his daughters to the soldier Kirei and tells Rin – the only one beside Saber to have received some basic training in fighting – to look after her sisters. Colonel Shinji, Kirei’s superior, would have normally been offended at not being the one asked to look after the girls, but strangely, he doesn’t show any dissatisfaction.

Saber is worried about all the strange things that have been happening, and tells her sister Irisviel, still in grief, to be careful and watch out. Saber says goodbye to her and to Sakura, who surprisingly thanks her for her kindness in a strange way and with eyes full of tears, and to Rin, who is instead emotionless. Saber also visits Illya’s grave and, after some hesitation, Jeanne’s as well. She remembers her friend for who she was, not for the mad person she became just before dying.

Saber leaves with her father Iskandar. At first, they talk very little; they both know that it could be the last time they see each other though, because they hear more and more about Gilgamesh’s reputation, therefore they know that he’s close to unbeatable. Saber finally tells Iskandar that she respects him and she is grateful for him taking her in, but at the same time wishes he had taught her and her sister to defend themselves, instead of solely offering them hospitality. He laughs for the first time a little bitterly, and tells her he was a failure as a father; if he had been a good father, he would have made sure that neither of his daughters was in danger and never had the need to lift a sword to protect themselves. He is a good man, after all, even though his wish is unrealistic. Right before they part ways, she nods and smiles at him. Iskandar understands then that he should have done more to make sure his daughters could smile more often.

He leaves for the main city, while Saber goes to meet her father’s godson, Diarmuid, who is glad to see her. He agrees to her request of coming back with her to protect her family, even though she notices that something is off in his behaviour. Before they can leave, Saber unexpectedly meets Gilgamesh. She’s surprised and wary, as she had assumed him to be with Iskandar, but Gilgamesh tells her truthfully that he hasn’t met him yet. Diarmuid keenly observes them talking, and then, to Saber’s surprise, leaves her alone with him, going ahead. To her even greater shock, as soon as they are alone Gilgamesh proposes to her.

Saber is both dumbfounded and furious. She yells at him and rebukes him, accusing him of causing Gilles’s murderous madness, and then attacks him; Gilgamesh is forced to leave, completely taken aback by her anger.

Flashback about Gilgamesh, about his younger brother Enkidu, in which it’s explained that Kirei was the one who influenced the events so to make Enkidu die. Diarmuid, once Saber reaches him, tells her the same story, without knowing anything about the proposal though, just aware that Gilgamesh has a genuine interest in her.

Diarmuid and Saber head back, only to decide to turn around midway and go to the neighbouring country, as they are worried about Iskandar. When they reach the main city, they see people seeming very upset and sad, and they inform Saber that her adopted father just died in duel against Gilgamesh. She mourns Iskandar and burns his body. She also hears, however, that the duel was a fair one: the ‘heartless’ Gilgamesh, even though he didn’t get a scratch, acknowledged Iskandar’s abilities and even offered him mercy. Saber knows that her father is strong but would never accept pity, therefore she isn’t surprised at the outcome; she is however confused by Gilgamesh seemingly behaving fairly.

However, she doesn’t have the time to ponder over this, because when she and Diarmuid return home to also tell everyone about Iskandar’s death, they find the place in chaos. Irisviel runs to Saber as soon as she seed her, to tell her that Sakura has hanged herself. Diarmuid’s expression is unreadable, and Saber barely notices him leave silently.

Among everyone else being distraught, Rin is however not crying, she’s furious instead, and she verbally abuses Saber, yelling at her that she left Sakura to die. Rin reveals that she found out that Colonel Shinji sexually abused Sakura for months, and since she couldn’t bear it anymore she killed herself. Saber is horrified, but upon swearing to Rin that she was unaware of this, Rin calms down and they agree to go together to confront Shinji. Irisviel demands to come too, because Sakura was her sister as well.

On their way there, they are surprised to meet Kiritsugu; he doesn’t offer more than a very vague explanation for his presence there, but goes with them to meet Shinji. While walking, Irisviel tells Saber that she had time to consider things and find out a bit more, and even though she doesn’t get the chance to relay all the details, she insists that Kiritsugu is trustworthy, and she also says that Gilgamesh is not responsible for Gilles’s atrocities and is instead someone who may be trusted, too.

Kiritsugu intervenes in their conversation, explaining that it was in fact Kirei who made Gilles go mad, and he probably has at least one other accomplice around, which is why he and Gilgamesh were forced to leave after Gilles and Jeanne’s wedding. Kiritsugu also briefly tells Saber that Enkidu (Gilgamesh’s younger brother) was killed by Kirei, but since he was a very kind-hearted person, Enkidu made Gilgamesh promise not to take revenge and spare his killer, which is why Gilgamesh didn’t execute Kirei.

They find Shinji, and after very little accusations, he admits to his horrible crimes; Saber and Rin behead him together. Kiritsugu, with Saber’s reluctant help, since she isn’t fully convinced about him in spite of Irisviel’s trust, fights against Kirei. Kiritsugu tells her that Kirei is a spirit controlling an innocent human body, and they need to chase it out to end the possession. They manage to do so, and it’s revealed that in truth, Kirei is an evil spirit that possessed a blacksmith, whose name is Shirou. He seems to be known as a nice person, and Kiritsugu is glad, even though he hates his other face (Kirei) because he took advantage of Shirou’s kindness. Tired, as he deposits Shirou’s comatose form on the ground, Kiritsugu lowers his guard.

Treacherously, Rin pierces Kiritsugu’s chest with a spear in front of Saber and Irisviel, a light of craziness clouding her eyes. Coldly, she explains that Tokiomi, the man who harassed Irisviel and Illya, was her and Sakura’s biological father, and since Kiritsugu had tortured him to death, she wanted her revenge on the person who had killed her family. Irisviel, hysterical with grief, yells at her that she, Saber and Iskandar were her real family, and that Kiritsugu was innocent, but Rin simply turns to her, not believing her, and is ready to attack her too. Saber protects her without hurting Rin, but they are interrupted by a dark shadow that throws them all to the ground.

Rin takes advantage the distraction to flee, and the shadow – which seems familiar to Saber – descends towards Saber again. However, Irisviel pushes her out of the way, and is invested by the darkness in her place; the shadow begins to slowly eat her alive, so Irisviel stabs herself to cease suffering and smiles at Saber one last time before dying.

Saber screams, trying to go to her aid, but Gilgamesh, coming out of nowhere, stops her. Saber is desperate, and after shouting at him, takes what remains of Irisviel’s body away for burial, but Gilgamesh finds her again, and manages to force her to calm down and focus. He apologizes stiffly for his past behaviour towards her, and she overcomes her pride and apologizes as well.

They are interrupted as Diarmuid arrives, fatally wounded, and explains that the shadow was Hassan. Saber realizes that her instincts were indeed right, and he was not to be trusted especially because people stayed away from him, as he was actually an assassin. Diarmuid describes to a speechless Saber, while his breath becomes fainter, that it was in fact Hassan who killed her older brothers. Diarmuid confesses that he is immune to the shadow powers and that’s why he went to kill him; he has succeeded, but at the cost of his own life, as Hassan dealt him a last blow with his dying breath. With his own dying breath, Diarmuid begs for Saber’s forgiveness, because he took her rightful revenge from her.

Saber knows that she’s all alone now, because Irisviel, Illya, Iskandar, Sakura, Jeanne and Diarmuid are all dead. Rin is still alive but has gone berserk, and she needs to be stopped. Gilgamesh reminds her, as she’s lost in her thoughts, that he’s still around, and he doesn’t plan on dying, nor on leaving, therefore orders her to stop being morose if she wants to be able to fight.

However, she has been injured by the shadow, therefore Gilgamesh takes her and the still recovering Shirou to Natalia, Kiritsugu’s mother, who has just witnessed her last child Shirley dying at Rin’s hands. As Gilgamesh leaves, in an attempt to locate Rin, Natalia explains to Saber that Irisviel spoke the truth, as it wasn’t Kiritsugu who tortured Tokiomi to death. Kiritsugu had only had words with him, telling him to stay away from Irisviel – but _Jeanne_ was the one who had tortured him to death, because Hassan had managed to use his shadows to make her mentally unstable, and through her, he had influenced Gilles into losing his reason as well.

Gilgamesh is able to find Rin, and kills her as swiftly as possible, putting the girl out of her misery, because she had been manipulated by Hassan’s shadow as well. He then goes back, but he finds Saber and Shirou gone and Natalia slaughtered. He follows the traces and finds Saber, who has hidden herself in order to survive the attack. Rin had killed Kiritsugu before he had been able to completely free Shirou from Kirei’s influence, and therefore Kirei is still marginally present in his body; he has emerged again, aiming a death blow towards a still wounded Saber, but Natalia protected her, losing her life.

Kirei is the last threat still alive. Saber tells Gilgamesh that Shirou’s body was badly damaged by Natalia and they know it’s impossible to save him anymore – they need to kill Kirei completely, because he will continue with the massacre otherwise. Finding him is not hard: they just need to follow the carnage.

Saber is close to being completely broken, but she does want to protect innocent people from the killing machine that Kirei has become. She also remembers Irisviel’s words, and decides to allow herself to believe she was right; even though it’s true that she doesn’t have a choice now, she can indeed trust Gilgamesh.

However, she doesn’t reveal to him that Natalia didn’t have the time to assist her in her recovery, and she still has her injury, which isn’t healing. Gilgamesh sees the fire in her eyes, the fire he noticed on their first meeting, and kisses her. She hesitates only a second, knowing that she’s going to die and knowing that she’s afraid of caring again about someone after losing her entire family so recently, but then she kisses him back.

Their final fight against Kirei isn’t long, and they win, but before being defeated, Kirei’s shadow manages to stab Saber, in the exact spot where her wound is, making sure it’s fatal.

With a last smile, Saber dies in Gilgamesh’s arms, and even though he screams her name and begs for her to stay alive and with him, she fades away, and he, the only one still alive, remains alone.

….…

….…


End file.
